What is a Research Problem?

• This a problem that someone would like to research

• This involves areas of concern to researchers, condition they want to
improve, difficulty they want to eliminate, question for which they seek
answers
 Sources of research problems
• The research literature
• Problems in practice or work-related contexts
• Personal biography or history (such as current or past personal
experiences or identities, race, ethnicity, gender, class
background, family customs, religion and so forth)
 Research Questions
• Serve as the focus of the researcher’s investigation
• This should dictate the research type and paradigm (qualitative,
quantitative or mixed method) used to conduct the study
 Examples of initial research questions
• Do group activities promote more learning in students than
individual/independent activities?
• How can we predict which students might have trouble learning certain
kinds of subject matter?
• How do parents feel about the No Homework bill?
• How can a Mathematics teacher improve students’ confidence of
learning lessons in Mathematics?
 Researchable Versus Nonresearchable
questions
No Yes
• Should I put my younger in • Do children enrolled in preschool
preschool? develop better social skills than
children not enrolled?
• What is the best way to learn to • At which age is it more helpful to
read? introduce phonics to children-age
5, age 6, or age 7?
• Who commits more crimes-poor
• Are some people born bad? people or rich people?
 Characteristics of Good research Questions
1. Feasible (i.e. I can be investigated without expending an undue amount
of time, energy, or money)
2. Clear (i.e. most people would agree as to what the key words in the
question mean)
3. Significant (i.e. it is worth investigating)
4. Ethical (i.e. it will not involve physical or psychological harm to human
beings or to the natural or social environment of which they are a part)
 Feasible versus nonfeasible

Not so feasible feasible

• How would achievement be
affected by giving each
student his or her own laptop
computer to use for a
semester?
• How do the students at
Isabela State University feel
about the administrators’
decision to include the
Filipino subject in the GEC?
 Research question should be clear
• Consider the following research questions:
1. Is a humanistically oriented classroom effective?
• What is humanistically oriented classroom?
• What happens in such classroom that is different from what happens to
other classroom?
• Do teachers use certain kinds of strategies?
• Do they lecture?
• In what sort of activities do the students participate?
• What do such classrooms look like-how is the seating arrangement,
for example?
• What kinds of materials are used?
• Is there much variation to be found from classroom to classroom in
the strategies employed by the teacher or in the sorts of activities in
which students engage?
• Do the kinds of materials available and/or used vary?
Another term in this question is also ambiguous. What does the term
effective mean?
• Does it mean “results in increased academic proficiency,” “results in
happier children,” “makes life easier for teachers,” or “cost less
money”?
2. How do teachers feel about special classes for the educationally
handicapped?
• Terms/phrases that need clarification:
- Teachers
- feel about
- Special classes
- Educationally handicapped (e.g. of legal definition: a minor who, by reasons of
marked learning or behavioural disorders is unable to adapt to a normal classroom
situation. The disorder must be associated with a neurological handicap or an
emotional disturbance and must not be due to mental retardation, cultural
deprivation, or foreign language problems.)
Three ways to clarify important terms in a research
questions:
1. Constitutive definition- using dictionary approach
Researchers simply use other words to say more clearly what is meant.
e.g. humanistic classroom
a classroom in which (1) the needs and interest of students have the
highest priority; (2) students work on their own for a considerable amount
of time in each class period; and (3) the teacher acts as a guide and a
resource person rather than an informant
2. Clarification by example
e.g. The researcher might think of a few humanistic classrooms with
which they are familiar and then try to describe as fully as possible what
happens in these classrooms.
-any classroom judged by an observer spending at least one day per week
for four to five weeks to possess all the following characteristics:
a. No more than three children working with the same materials at the
same time
b. The teacher never spending more than 20 minutes per day addressing
the class as a group
c. At least half of every class period open for students to work on
projects of their own choosing at their own pace
3. Operational definitions
It requires the researcher to specify the actions or operations necessary
to measure or identify the term.
e.g. motivated to learn mathematics
Defined as observed by teacher aides using the “ Mathematics Interest”
observation record”
Research Questions should be significant
• How might answers to this question advance knowledge in my
field?
• How might answers to this research question improve
educational practice?
• How much answer to this research question improve human
condition?
Locating and Reviewing the Literature
 Types of sources
• General Reference tools
Access to indexes and abstracts through online databases. (e.i.Education Resources
Information Center (ERIC)- online database of education research and
Information sponsored by US department of Education and the Institute of
education Science.
• Primary sources are publications in which researchers report the results of their
studies directly to the reader. Most primary sources in education are journals.
• Secondary sources refer to publications in which authors describe the works of
others. (textbooks that may describe several studies as a way to illustrate various
ideas and concepts in the different disciplines), ; encyclopedias, research reviews
 Steps Involved in a Literature Search
1. Define the research problem as precisely as possible
2. Look at relevant secondary sources (these can include research reviews).
3. Select and peruse one or two appropriate general reference works.
4. Formulate search terms (key words or phrases) pertinent to the problem
or question of interest.
5. Search for relevant primary sources using appropriate general reference
tools
6. Obtain and read relevant primary sources, and note and summarize key
points in the sources
Define the research problem as precisely as possible

• State the research question as specifically as possible

e.g. What sorts of teaching methods work well in urban
classroom?
More specific: Is discussion more effective than showing a
video clip in motivating students to learn social studies
concepts?
 Look at relevant secondary sources
Some of the most commonly used secondary sources in educational research:
Encyclopedia of educational research
Handbook of research on teaching
Review of educational research
Review of research in education
Handbook of reading research
Handbook of research on curriculum
Handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning
Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning
Handbook of research on the teaching of English
 Select and peruse one or two appropriate general
reference works.
• List of most commonly used general reference tools
Education index
Education Resources Information Center (ERIC)
PsyInfo
Exceptional Child Education Resources (ECER) online database
Social Science Citation Index (SSCI)
Proquest Dissertations and Theses
 The Literature review report
• It consists of an introduction, the body of the review, a
summary, the researcher’s conclusions and a bibliography
• It should include a research for relevant meta-analysis reports,
as well as individual studies
• When a researcher does a meta-analysis, she/he averages the
results of a group of selected studies to get an overall index of
outcome or relationship[.